Press ESC key to close search

Vic Socotra

Author: Vic Socotra

  1. Home
  2. Vic Socotra
September 28, 2019 Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Fruitcake Season

Editor’s Note: I meant to memorialize yesterday- the one year anniversary of tripping on one of my elegant Persian rugs and crashing headlong into the wall at my little pied a terre at Big Pink. Recovery has been almost as interesting as the immediacy of the blow to the head. That was recent, compared to […]

September 26, 2019 Vic Socotra

What the Flock

Jail break for the turkeys from the Russians. Great afternoon at the farm. Herding cats? Give me a break. Nothing going on today here in the country except assorted poultry. Up north, there seems to be some stuff going on with the acting Director of National Intelligence and that irritating Mr. Schiff. I prefer herding […]

September 25, 2019 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard: Indian Summer?

God, I love this time of year in The Swamp. My Wolverines have broken my heat early this season, so that it something out of the way and not to worry about the rest of the season. The Virginia days are gentle, if you are not blocking the Inter-State across town. Demonstrators about something- Climate? […]

September 23, 2019 Vic Socotra

Arrias: Navy Leadership Unconcerned

I had a commanding officer who used to regularly quote Vice Admiral Buckeley, his favorite one being: “I’ve seen clean ships that couldn’t fight, but I’ve never seen a dirty one that could.” Bulkeley, who commanded Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 3 in the Philippines at the start of WWII, would go on to have 11 […]

September 21, 2019 Vic Socotra

Point Loma: Iron Dome

Iron Dome: Have Your Abqaiq, and Eat It, Too Editor’s Note:The season is changing here in the country. Like all veteran crisis junkies, the current multi-level, multi-arena crises in progress have me galvanized. The best way to deal with this reality is to take a deep, cleansing breath and turn to WETA on the cable […]

September 18, 2019 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard: Water Rising?

(New National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien) So, apparently there was not enough going on here in The Swamp and we had to step it up again. At some point, perhaps sanity will return, but I am not expecting anything much until a year for November. And goodness knows what is going to happen after that. […]

September 17, 2019 Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Ass Pocket of Whiskey

Long ago when I lived in the deep south and worked as a migratory construction worker, I bought and drank my first ass pocket of whiskey (an 8 ouncer) at a gasoline station. The job site and the rental trailer I lived in were way out in the sticks, there were no bars or roadhouses […]

September 17, 2019 Vic Socotra

News Alert

I confess to being in a mild state of alert shock- I was barely over the Hurricane Hysteria. But what an interesting week. I was going to try to salvage something witty and acerbic out of the loss of 50% of Saudi Arabia’s oil export capability, the uncertainty about the loss of what amounts to […]

September 16, 2019 Vic Socotra

Arrias: Iran: Blood Feud

Henry Ford famously noted that: “History is bunk.” Hmmm… On 14 September Houthis rebels (from Yemen), a de facto proxy force of the government of Iran, attacked the largest single oil refinery complex in the world – the Abqaiq complex in eastern Saudi Arabia, about 40 miles southwest of Dhahran. The specifics are still not […]

September 15, 2019 Vic Socotra

Point Loma: Abqaiq

Editor’s Note: For anyone still alive, and driving, who experienced the OPEC Oil Shock of 1973, take this news on. If we were still dependent on Saudi oil, you can only imagine the impact on next week’s commute would be. Or the lines for gas, or the odd-even license plate day nonsense. Taking half of […]